The reaction to the release of WordPress 6.0 Arturo was mostly good, with a few unexpected experiences and reactions.
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| WordPress Community Reacts to Arturo's 6.0 Release |
Many users have expressed their enthusiasm about WordPress 6.0, and it looks like the distribution has gone well.
Although there were a few complaints of plugin conflicts, it appears that attitudes differed depending on which segment of the WordPress community was reacting.
Over 36% of all websites have been updated
According to WordPress documentation, 36.2 percent of all WordPress sites have upgraded in the two weeks after WordPress 6.0 was released.
WordPress version 5.9 is still used by over a quarter of the user population.
Source: WordPress.org
WordPress 6.0 Arturo is a version upgrade, which implies it is moving from the 5. X to the 6. X development branch.
For some consumers, this may be concerning because most version modifications, such as a new cell phone model, include significant changes.
With WordPress 6.0, however, this is not the case.
Version 6.0 is an incremental upgrade, similar to previous version releases, that focuses on making the experience of creating websites more straightforward and accessible.
Nonetheless, some users are going to be wary of upgrading, and this is not wholly unjustified.
WordPress Advanced Users
The general tone of the discussion in the Advanced WordPress Facebook group, which is made up of developers, was mostly one of pragmatic acceptance that Gutenberg isn't ready yet, with some saying they'll wait for a few more releases until Gutenberg is more robust and stable before adopting it for their clients.
One user complained about the absence of adequate documentation in a 107-post debate regarding WordPress 6.0, which is a legitimate issue.
The consensus in this Facebook community regarding WordPress Arturo is that it's a nice step forward, with acknowledgment of significant development in 6.0.
One member of the group commended the Block Tree changes, while another stated that the editor runs more smoothly overall.
This last point concerning the editor's smoothness is noteworthy because one of WordPress 6.0's aims was to make it more straightforward to use.
WordPress 6.0 and Advanced Users
Matt Cromwell, an administrator of the Advanced WordPress Facebook group and a WordPress entrepreneur and co-founder of GiveWP.com, expressed his opinions on WordPress 6.0's reaction.
He bases his assessment on what WP 6.0 has to offer and how it has been received:
"The primary purpose of WordPress 6.0 was to improve Full Site Editing to make it more accessible and appealing to WordPress implementers, such as freelancers, agencies, and corporate web development teams.
The future of WordPress is full site editing, but only if it achieves traction.
Full Site Editing will only gain significant momentum if themes adopt it. This functionality is currently only available to users if your theme specifies that it supports it.
Style switching, page templates, and integrated block patterns are just a few of the new capabilities that make Full Site Editing a lot more powerful for theme designers.
In the long run, this should assist to enhance adoption.
In terms of community reaction, the response to Full Site Editing in particular is quite comparable to when Gutenberg was originally launched among the small businesses, freelancers, and agencies with which I routinely contact. It is presently too immature to develop websites.
Overall, people recognize the promise, but other tools, like Elementor or Divi, are significantly more battle-tested and mature if you want to provide a feature to customers that allows them to make big site-wide changes.
The public conversation on the Gutenberg discussion board about making it more "agency friendly" is a great illustration of this.
Both the proposed enhancements and the criticism are instructive in terms of understanding how implementers are grappling with the adoption of what Gutenberg currently has to offer."
Reddit's Reaction
The discussions in the private Advanced WordPress Users Facebook group were more opinionated than those on Reddit.
Sdenike, a member, stated that they were pleased with the Gutenberg editor:
"I've been using Gutenberg as my only editor for over a year and haven't experienced any of the issues/concerns that other people have experienced on their sites..."
However, that statement was received with a barrage of replies, with one user claiming that WordPress had grown worse.
Why would someone suggest that a new WordPress core version is worse than the prior one?
Many members of the WordPress community evaluated WP 6.0 before it was released, so it's not because WordPress provided a subpar product.
A clash with an older plugin or theme may be causing the sense of an upgrade to be worse.
Even though 6.0 was designed to be backward compatible, some plugin and theme incompatibilities are nearly unavoidable.
Before blaming the WordPress core, it's a good idea to double-check that all plugins and themes are up-to-date.
Conflicts Between Plugins and Themes
A bizarre problem that generated a blank page for the edit screen was reported by Redditor Álava.
"Since the change, my "edit post" page on Chrome is blank, urgh!"
Another Redditor, laser point, expressed his dissatisfaction with the justified alignment following the update.
"All I want is justified text and paragraph alignment." "What was the reason for its removal?"
A Redditor questioned about the lower performance after upgrading to WordPress 6.0 in another thread.
"Hello, I'm using WordPress 6.0 and I'm trying to figure out why my website isn't working as well as it should." I enabled debug in wp-config.php, and I found something (missing PHP libraries).”
That user went on to say that the customer site is good except for the fact that it is slower, and that they required assistance figuring out which plugin was conflicting with the latest WordPress version.
Is WordPress 6.0 prone to a bug?
Another Redditor brought up an intriguing (and presumably unique) content alignment issue.
Stinky Weezle, a member, had this to say:
"It's fantastic, however by default, all of my column containers are vertically centered with a 2em gap between them."
If you don't choose a vertical alignment, all the fallbacks have been adjusted, but they still seem top-aligned in the editor until you click each block.
Now I have to update lock 150 sites until I can find a way to modify the fallbacks without touching the core."
There Are Still Opponents To Gutenberg's Classic Editor
As previously stated, almost 20% of WordPress users have yet to upgrade from 5.9 to 6.0. A recent Reddit discussion may help to explain why.
Prankster999, a Reddit user, stated that he prefers the old editor over Gutenberg. They didn't say why, other than that they're used to using the traditional editor.
Prankster999 made the following comment:
"Do I seem to be the only one who prefers the "Classic Editor" to the "Block Editor"?
I understand that the "Block Editor" aims to make WordPress more like Medium in terms of appearance and functionality.
However, the "Classic Editor" follows in the footsteps of websites such as Reddit and forums (such as Xenforo)."
Others, such as rockycse21, concurred, stating that the traditional editor was more "trustworthy."
They didn't specify what they meant by "reliable," but it may be interpreted as a dig at how the Classic Editor is a finished product that acts as expected, but Gutenberg is still in development and, as a result, lacks the sense of familiarity that the Classic Editor does.
As a result, part of the hesitation to update might be explained by a sense of comfort in using what they presently have. Why repair something that isn't broken?
Many people, according to Redditor picard102, intentionally despise Gutenberg:
"You're not the only one who feels this way. The Block Editor is reviled by many individuals."
That is an extreme viewpoint, but it is not uncommon. There is still opposition to Gutenberg's adoption.
Higgs-B pointed out that the Gutenberg editor isn't quite ready yet, which is correct.
"Unfortunately, for non-coders, the block/Gutenberg editor is still in its infancy."
WordPress 6.0 is the latest version
The most essential thing to understand about the new WordPress version is that it is an incremental upgrade rather than a dramatic one. It's also built to be backward compatible.
That implies it will operate with PHP versions lower than 7.4 (down to PHP 5.6) in server settings, while 7.4 is the minimal version recommended.
It's worth noting that WordPress 6.0, like WordPress 5.9 before it, currently only supports PHP 8.0 in beta.
Customers that upgraded to PHP 8.0 would probably encounter incompatibility difficulties.
It's a good idea to back up the complete WordPress site and database before updating, so that if something goes wrong, the website may be restored to a prior condition.
Knowing all of this ahead of time may avoid you from having to deal with some issues and strangeness that a few people have reported.
Overall, the WordPress community has praised WordPress 6.0 for being a painless upgrade.